Posted
by
timothyon Sunday June 03, 2012 @10:32AM
from the they've-got-a-good-track-record-too dept.

Reader rtfa-troll writes: "'GPL enforcement by Software Freedom Conservancy puts electronics makers on notice, leaves business users untouched,' says Infoworld, going on to explain 'You are several orders of magnitude more likely to be raided by your proprietary suppliers, in the form of the Business Software Alliance, than to ever hear from SFC, let alone face any action. License compliance is a major and costly issue for proprietary software, but the case concerns an end-user license agreement (EULA), not a source license.' The article gives a good summary of why having GPL licenses enforced helps everybody, except for 'hardware manufacturers — typically those creating low-cost consumer and business electronics' who need to verify that they pass on the same rights to others as they received with the original code."

Out of curiosity, If APIs cannot be copyrighted, does this mean they cannot also be covered by the GPL? This would seem to be a fairly major implication of the Oracle vs. Google case. (Speaking strictly about API definitions/header files.)

There's not really any question that GPLed APIs are not under copyright. The whole viral effect stems from the linking stage, which FSF claims will include the GPLed code into the non-GPL program, which the license doesn't allow. IIRC, there are judgements on this too, probably dating back to the Unix wars.

For a loooooong time the MySQL team were claiming that any library which implemented the API required to talk to MySQL also fell under the licensing terms for MySQL - you didnt have to link to anything provided by MySQL, you just had to use the same structures and names.

Then they quietly stopped claiming it and all traces vanished from the MySQL website.

I don't have any links - I tried looking for stuff to back this up a year or so ago and couldn't find anything linkable then - but I do have an archive of a dozen or so emails between myself and a MySQL salesman in 2002 where he outlined the exact issue described. Up until 2006 or so, MySQL considered *all* communication mechanisms with the MySQL server as "linking", and thus the license applied even if you wrote your own library and communicated with the TCP/IP socket directly, not calling any of MySQLs l

Yes, the point of their claim was so that you couldnt write a proprietary library and use that to talk to MySQL, you had to use their licensed libraries - which meant that for a commercial proprietary app, you had to license their commercial offering rather than just use the GPLed library.

The whole viral effect stems from the linking stage, which FSF claims will include the GPLed code into the non-GPL program, which the license doesn't allow.

That's why nearly anything you'd want to link to is LGPL - that way, you can link to the library in question without being a derivative work under GPL definitions. For instance, you can write anything you want on top of glibc, and it won't have to be GPL'd.

The whole "viral effect" of the GPL is to prevent somebody from taking a useful GPL'd application, adding a few bells and whistles to it, and then pawning the whole thing off as their own. Linking to an LGPL library does not do that. If you want the funct

I suppose that would depend on whether the linked code was covered by the GPL or LGPL [wikipedia.org]. The former does not allow linking by non-GPLed code whereas the latter does. As the linked Wikipedia article states, its a matter of strategy: Do you want to carve out an advantage for GPL apps? Or do you want to attract vendors (with other licensing policies) to your platform?

The no copyright for APIs decision might make this issue moot. If proprietary APIs can't be copyrighted (to impose proprietary licensing restrict

Out of curiosity, If APIs cannot be copyrighted, does this mean they cannot also be covered by the GPL?

The GPL exists within copyright law, so yes, that's what it means.

This would seem to be a fairly major implication of the Oracle vs. Google case. (Speaking strictly about API definitions/header files.)

The judge's decision about API non-copyrightability merely continues the status-quo that has been in place for decades, and is little more than a footnote in computing history; a footnote that reads: "Nothing new happened. An evil company was unable to change decades of standard practice to fit its own warped agenda."

My bad. Sorry. I even spotted it during submission but seem to have copied the wrong link over the one I got right. I guess it proves that I really am the RTFA-troll though. If the editors had read the article they would have noticed:-):-)

When you use laws to advance your agenda, you will find that the effects are not what you intended. These "good guys" appear to believe that enforcing the GPL would result in more mobile devices with all software on them open sourced. But that, of course, isn't going to happen. If a company does not want to release the source code now, it will not release the source code in the face of legal sanctions either. It will simply stop shipping the product. Then it will purge all GPL software from any future devic

When you use laws to advance your agenda, you will find that the effects are not what you intended. These "good guys" appear to believe that enforcing the GPL would result in more mobile devices with all software on them open sourced. But that, of course, isn't going to happen. If a company does not want to release the source code now, it will not release the source code in the face of legal sanctions either. It will simply stop shipping the product.

Got any numbers to back up that claim? I know of several cases where vendors have, from the get-go or after legal action, made source code available. At least some of those vendors still ship devices + GPL code (DLink is an example of a vendor that initially resisted, but now provides access to the source code). I don't know of any vendors that have stopped shipping GPL code when made to comply with the license. But that's just what I know. If you have data that shows there is a significant trend in either direction, please share.

I don't know of any vendors that have stopped shipping GPL code when made to comply with the license.

Linksys used to put Linux on all of their home routers but now uses a closed-source OS on most of them.

Are there cases where a firmware update for a shipping product replaced Linux with another operating system? I'm aware of plenty of Linksys hardware where a later revision of the "same" hardware has a totally different core and often different WiFi hardware as well, but none where it has a wholly different kernel, except maybe a slightly later one which is still Linux.

If they don't want to follow the simple rules, then they don't have to use the product. Sure there are other OSes, but few are as cheap, widespread, and as easy to use as the GNU/Linux and BusyBox/Linux combinations.

In fact, I would love for all the people who don't want to follow the GPL when it comes to Linux, BusyBox and the GNU tools to stop using them. Start using costly alternatives like QNX, or whatever. If the products are better, people might buy them. But the cost of the OS will make the cost of t

These "good guys" appear to believe that enforcing the GPL would result in more mobile devices with all software on them open sourced. But that, of course, isn't going to happen.

[citation needed]

If a company does not want to release the source code now, it will not release the source code in the face of legal sanctions either. It will simply stop shipping the product.

If the company depends on the success of the product and it will otherwise go out of business it will release the source and then sell the product. Otherwise, you are correct. Not my problem, or yours either.

Thus the end result of GPL enforcement is not more open source devices, but fewer.

No, and also no. The end result of GPL enforcement is more open source devices, because some of them will release the code, whereas without the enforcement, none of the offending parties will release the code, and thus the source remains closed.

It is true that none of them will be "stealing" the work of GPL programmers, but is that really of any concern to anybody but them?

Who is "them" in this case? Try harder.

The result for users is fewer available choices, each running on a proprietary OS with weird UIs.

[citation needed]

There's lots of companies "making" hardware without doing any R&D at all. They license designs, or they steal designs. Then they contract someone to build the parts, assemble the devices and so on. When it comes time to assemble a software stack they're looking for whatever is going to enable them to make the most profit. If the hardware supports Linux and they think their market will embrace Linux then it's a no-brainer; the software stack is free. They customize some graphics, and offer the source from their website for at least as long as they hope to have it on the market, or as long as the company is in existence which is sometimes even shorter. More and more cheap Linux-based devices are showing up all the time in spite of your assertions and in spite of ongoing GPL enforcement efforts. Your statements are thus utterly unfounded.

As far as I know, no serious GPL advocate actually says that infringing others' copyrights is good. They mostly say "use the free alternative".

Yes, there are a few debacles like some people accidentally (or on purpose for that matter) taking say BSDL code and making it GPL (you're allowed to make your modifications GPL, but not the original code itself, if I understand correctly). But nobody advocates piracy.

I think the double standard come from the simple fact that no "serious" GPL advocate has ever tried to sue or extort money from mere users of GPL programs. On the other hand, the "evil" studios or their henchmen (army of lawyer types) appear hellbent on making every freeloading downloader pay. Typical targets of GPL "threats" tend to be companies not individual users.

While users can "benefit" from the GPL, they can't break the GPL. Only people who redistribute the software with changes. This tends to be companies. In music cases, no companies are involved. And the end users are actually doing the dirty work.

That screen is for information. In fact, several rights (and duties) are conferred on you when you accept the GPL. It's not only a source license - you received a binary of the software, and in that action, you received certain rights to the software. You should be informed of your rights and obligations under the GPL, same as under any other license.

So that you know that you cannot duplicate this software, slap a price on it, and distribute it while witholding the source.You cannot just do a binary patch changing the license into : "please send me money"...

Getting the "GPL" at installation point is just a way or the "packagers" who provide you with the software to inform you that you might, if you'd wish get the source.Of course they would put it in a separate file, and some do, but it's useful to educate people about the existence of this file, and a spash screen is an easy way.

Dude, the GPL is one of the most simple licenses out there. Perhaps this isn't an issue with the other licenses because everyone just assumes that they will not be enforced, which strikes me as odd. But I still do not get how people miscontstrue the GPL in such a variety of ways.

If you make an image with GIMP the image does not need to be released under the GPL! You are free to use the GPLed program, in this case GIMP for any purpose (seriously, for *any purpose*). An image created using GIMP is not a deri

Just plain not true, you can use gcc to write non GPL software, and emacs to write a non CC nor FDL book.You are bound by the GPL only if you redistribute the GPL code (modified or not), in the case of the GCC it even says explicitelly that the "chunks of code" it might reuse in the generated code are not GPL, since they are just a "traduction" of your "code"..

The patent issue that you allude to in the video media comment is just the main reason the GPL V3 was created to avoid that people on one hand create liberties using GPL code, and then take them away with software patents..

The issue there is not the GPL but the minefield the US Patent code has created for IT, software patents are always a bad idea.

the typical argument is 'we are robbing those evil studios so its ok'.

No, that's just a straw man. I suspect most people here wouldn't even call it "robbing." And there are people who are against copyright in general but believe that as long as copyright should exist, so should the GPL. I know simplifying the matter makes it easier to attack your opponents, but do lay off the straw men.

There was a time when it was common for most slashdot readers to be GPL advocates who wouldn't touch Windows with a 10 foot pole. That was long ago. Now, there are many, many Windows users. Some of them are GPL advocates, and others hate Linux. Nobody knows what the split is, since the vast majority of Slashdot readers don't post very often if at all.

Well, the "average Slashdot commenter" is a fictional entity - an average between trolls, spammers, real commenters, with massive variation in how informed they are. There are all kinds here - conservatives, liberals, die-hard anarchists, windows users, mac users, linux people, and most importantly for this discussion, supporters of every single license ever made by man or troll!

If you could show a statistical correlation between the people here (or elsewhere) who advocate GPL and those who advocate infringement of proprietary software, I'd accept your point. Until then, it's hearsay and borderline slander.

Anyway, by "serious", I meant people like Stallman and Eben Moglen, who are actually doing the advocacy in a long-term, sustained manner.

Most importantly, the people running this operation are SFLC, FSF and others, who are definitely in the "use free alternatives, don't pirate" camp.

Stallman clearly says that if your neighbor asks your for a software that you use, it would be wrong not to give it to him, under the 'help your neighbor' pretext.

Yes, he does, but you missed the point. That's his reason for never using proprietary software: if you do, you're put in the position where you must either do the wrong thing and deny helping your neighbor, or do the wrong thing and break the license of the proprietary software.

Read his essay titled 'Why software should not have owners'. In it, he clearly says that if you're using a software and your neighbor asks you for it, it would be wrong to say no. In other words, he considers it wrong to follow the law governing the use of that software.

Honestly, I find that pathetic. This is not like conscientous objectors hiding Jews when Nazis came looking for them. It's just declining to help somebody b'cos it violates another agreement. Do we always do everything our friends and neighbors ask us to do? If my neighbor asked me to help set up a forgery outfit to help him out of his poverty and joblessness, would it be right or wrong of me to refuse?

You know, buddy, hyperbole that stupid doesn't belong here. First you take Stallman completely out of context, then you resort to extreme hyperbole. When you have to resort to either tactic, you already lost the debate.

Slashdot has a large community of posters, but a community does not hold double standards, only individuals may do so. So, Slashdot has a (fairly large) set of community members promoting the GPL and similar licenses, and Slashdot has a set of community members advocating copyright infringement. But since we do not have any information about whether these sets overlap or not, we cannot accuse anyone of holding double standards.

The sets may be completely disjoint (i.e. have no common members), or they may ov

GPL has nothing to do with a very different issue which is the surveillance society that the media industry is trying to foster on us.The only "interface" is when this industry is trying to use DRM which cannot be implemented with a GPL license (as it would be trivial to make a small modification which would then bypass the control and redistribute it).Then the GPL supporters are aligning themselves with the "piratebay" users.

The wast majority of the "pirates" are windows or macox users, do you think that A

Damn, I knew I missed something on my computer, I have no win anything partition...But then it's my bad I'm not playing video games, which is the usual excuse...And if i did have a partition, it would be one I paid with my computer (although I would have prefered not to pay it but in practice had no choice, so I delete about 100$ when I cleaned my disk...

And did you ever wonder, why they "had" to have such a partition ? (usually not pirated because it's unfortunately not necessary ?)For instance a friend of

The "double standard" is because EULAs are designed to restrict what you can do with a piece of software over and above what copyright does to restrict you. The GPL and other FOSS licenses give you rights you don't already have.

I respect the GPL because it recognises one thing that EULAs never recognise -- the unlimited right to run the program.

If someone's primary justification for decrying GPL violations is that its wrong to violate copyright, then it would indeed be hypocritical to support piracy of closed-source software. More generally, if the moral argument is that intellectual creation endows people with some intrinsic 'control' or 'ownership' of their creative works, then this moral argument applies equally to open-source and closed-source creations.

However, that is not the only argument in favor of respecting open-source licenses. In fact it may not be the most prevalent. Many people support open-source software because they fundamentally believe in the particular freedoms that are espoused by open-source licenses: that end-users should be unrestricted; that end-users should in fact be empowered to completely control their hardware, which means having the ability to see and edit all source-code; that sharing should be encouraged. Under the moral axioms of 'sharing is good' and/or 'users should be unrestricted' it is not inconsistent to encourage people to respect open-source licenses while simultaneously not respecting restrictive closed-source (or all-rights-reserved) copyrights/EULAs/etc.

My point here is not to promote any particular viewpoint. Rather, I'm responding to OP's assertion that it is hypocritical to support open-source licenses while simultaneously decrying closed-source licenses (or even going to far as to violate them). It may be hypocritical, or it may be consistent. (There's no lack of hypocrisy in this world, Slashdot included.) Many things look hypocritical only because one is making an assumption of the moral precepts that should be followed (normally, one thinks people are hypocritical because their morals are different from your own).

The "double standard" is because EULAs are designed to restrict what you can do with a piece of software over and above what copyright does to restrict you. The GPL and other FOSS licenses give you rights you don't already have.

I respect the GPL because it recognises one thing that EULAs never recognise -- the unlimited right to run the program.

The unlimited right to run the program is never what people object to about the GPL.

If you're making software gratis that you intend to make the world a better place and encourage the progagation of butterflies and rainbows, then yea, all free software is probably a good thing. But in the world that includes not only butterflies and rainbows but also the ability to feed my children, it can be too much of a good thing. Because if I'm a programmer, my livelihood depends on my ability to sell the product

So you need to use software licenses for any FOSS you use that allow you to use their compilers, tools, operating systems and whatever other tools you need in addition to the unique elements you develop on your own to produce a saleable package that customers will be willing to buy, without giving up any right to control copyright of your own work. I think we're all fine with conveying the license to the FOSS software that's included in our packages to the end user without restriction. You want to use the Linux distribution that's included in my package for stuff I didn't envision? Go ahead. I never owned that anyway and I don't care what you do with it as long as you don't drag me into liability issues for your modifications. I just don't want you to copy the elements I made without paying me for each installation.

Fud fud fud!

It's perfectly legal to build proprietary apps on top of Linux, glibc, and other friends. What you have to do is to provide the source to any modifications you make to the FOSS tools or packages, and convey the license to the user.

The elements you made which are not under GPL/similar, you can do whatever you want with them. The author of the GPLed package on the other hand, intended that you give back, as payment for his having built something you can use for free, any modifications you make. Are you saying that I should respect your right to your own license, but you won't respect mine?

That's not the only point here. If you look @ the GNU project website, they define their 4 freedoms, which are

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Most businesses, like yours, would have no issues w/ Freedoms 0 and 1. Freedom 0 is the very idea why they're selling it in the first place. Like you might be selling a spreadsheet, but your customer might be using it as a database. You wouldn't care - you've got your payment, and are happy. Similarly, let's say that you wrote a C compiler, which your customer wanted to tweak in order to include support for OpenRISC. You are more than happy to let him do it, and since you don't have other OpenRISC customers, you're fine w/ them using it in-house.

It's w/ Freedoms 2 and 3 that you run into problems. Let's say you priced your software - based on your business plan - @ $50.00, when people can start giving away copies of your software to their neighbors, instead of sending them to buy it from you, it devalues your software. So you might decide that okay, all my paying customers will get the source code w/ it, but they're not allowed to 'help their neighbor'. At that very moment, the GPL is not for you. You then have to scour for unLiberated Open Source licenses, or write your own. Then there is the question of what if you deliver your software on a locked down box, like TiVo does? Sometimes, Freedom 1 & 3 cannot be respected either, or else, the content providers could have problems w/ the device and refuse to support it, making it totally unviable in the marketplace.

It's not a mere question of how many lawyers do you need to figure it out. It's that 2 of the 4 very fundamental assumptions on which the GPL is built is completely unsuitable for business - at least business that requires selling software.

This goes well with my point. It's not that I'd consider violating GPL. It's that I consider the terms of the license so objectionable that I wouldn't want to use it at all for any software I intended to sell. BSD license terms, on the other hand, I have no problem with.

This goes well with my point. It's not that I'd consider violating GPL. It's that I consider the terms of the license so objectionable that I wouldn't want to use it at all for any software I intended to sell. BSD license terms, on the other hand, I have no problem with.

You would license software you sell as BSD? Since that would be even worse for restricting redistribution I can only assume you mean that when you want to use other people's code in your proprietary program you prefer BSD.

Obviously proprietary software vendors like to use other people's work for free without reciprocating as it gives them a competitive advantage. I trust you understand that people who illegally copy your work are just applying the same principles as you, sans license compliance.

Fortunately most software businesses are not selling software, they are selling problem solving. They are providing a way for their customers to achieve a goal using software. Preventing the customer from accessing or modifying the program that they paid for is, in the long run, counter-productive. Locking customers in to your services might be good for short term profit, but it isn't a good business.

It's only hard to figure out the GPL if you are trying to skirt it. As long as you stay within the intent, i.e. all downstram users can can run, receive complete source code (including build scripts), modify, distribute modified versions and, in case of GPL3, run modified versions on the hardware you shipped them on, you are very unlikely to run into problems.

Can you give even one example of anyone relevant who wants to sue Nvidia and AMD for releasing proprietary Linux drivers? No, thought not. Richard will tell you that you end up with a non-free distro, but hey, that's just pointing out the obvious. The FSF are well known for the view that non-free software is morally wrong; but their approach has not been to make legal changes, but to encourage the development of free software and set up a licence framework that wil

>Work for a company that sells software.Form my own company to sell software.>Work for a company that sells software.Form my own company to sell software.>In the latter two cases, you need to use copyright to control the distribution of the software. If you don't control the distribution, the price you can get for the software is zero or damn near that and your kids are going to starve.

Wrong. There are quite a few successful companies that do free software, and have been for decades. I am myself an

>Work for a company that sells software.
Form my own company to sell software.
>Work for a company that sells software.
Form my own company to sell software.
>In the latter two cases, you need to use copyright to control the distribution of the software. If you don't control the distribution, the price you can get for the software is zero or damn near that and your kids are going to starve.

Wrong. There are quite a few successful companies that do free software, and have been for decades.

The key word is few. Your example is a particular case of one of the ways I outlined to make some money out of a license like GPL.

But a few people wanted additional features - not least one company who wanted to start a franchise of the type of small businesses my software was aimed at. These people were my bread and butter.

emphasis mine. The sparseness of your market illustrates the reason why GPL isn't suitable for most programmers who want to earn money selling the product of their work.

as far as I'm concerned, an EULA is not even large enough to wipe your ass after a healthy shit becuase "I" didn't agree to it under the doctrines of "First Sale". Most times I purchase either Software or Hardware at retail, meaning that the only one that could have agreed to such an EULA is the Wholesaler that purchased it from the manufacturer. Sorry but simply put, I'll treat every EULA as an Attempted "Contraact of Adhesion" and if needed, will pursue that matter in a court of law as California Does Not

As I argued in 2 threads yesterday - the one about the Basque government's software choices, and another about the Chinese student who pilfered US government source code, one of the few good uses of GPLv3 is for government written software, where

The software written belongs to the taxpayer, and should ideally be in public domain (barring genuine classified stuff, such as military and intelligence software)

Having it under GPLv3 prevents anybody from profiting from it at taxpayer expense (since that was what was needed to create it in the first place)

Any changes to it, if transmitted, have to become transparent, and the taxpayers would benefit if it was actually of any use

The only other case where it makes (less) sense is if a standard is coded, and one wants it to be open. If the goal is to encourage its use, BSD is better, but if the gual is to have it just as a teaching tool but not commercially viable, then GPL is right for it.

The people who support your ideal are the good guys, the people who don't are the bad guys.

This is moral relativism patronization. Didn't these kind of theories get debunked a few years ago? And can you give a concise view of how exactly this applies to the current situation and not just some shit you're flinging on the wall to sound oh so hipster cynical cool?

The issue I have always had was the double standard that a lot of people in the Open Source Community have. It is OK to pirate Closed Source tool, but if a company breaks a rule in the GPL they should be fully punished. That is the most damaging part, because in order for the GPL to be respected the GPL community needs to respect the other Licenses out there.

This is so far in the camp of oxymoron as to be a caricature. You cannot be a serious GPL supporter and advocate infringing proprietary software. Of course Slashdot stopped being an Oasis of common sense long ago so I fully expect your FUD

You cannot be a serious GPL supporter and advocate infringing proprietary software.

Sure you can (No True Scotsman there). "I don't want you violating the GPL, but I don't mind you violating the copyright of proprietary software." It's simply a preference. And because they're two different things, a contradiction doesn't exist. Call it a double standard if you wish, but it's entirely possible to believe that.

I think that No True Scotsman doesn't really apply here. I think the original argument that every or at least, many GPL advocates also advocate infringement of EULAs. This argument is a fantastic setup for No True Scotsman, because you're reducing a whole host of different viewpoints to a single one, namely, "GPL advocate".

In other words, this argument is not engaging the proposer of the original idea, ie SFC, and instead, takes aim at an averaged "GPL advocate" who's setup as a straw-man. If a specific GPL

Presenting an argument in an understandable way, is often a good thing. Pointing out logical flaws isn't trolling (though it may be a logical flaw in itself). I found the GP's argument is quite unclear, actually. Apart from a few F-bombs and insults, I can't really make out what the argument is. I think it may be supporting my position, but I can't be sure!

I don't expect a thesis here, but that argument was impossible to follow, between all the cluster F-bombs and insults, I could hardly make out the actual argument, until I read it several times. And even then, I'm not too sure.

The previous poster (TinyLittleMend) did have an argument (which I disagreed with), and I posted on that too. A little clarity, a little less name calling, and a few organized thoughts is all I ask.

I have had that accusation flung at me before, but it's a matter of wilful ignorance on their part. I dont advocate violating the copyright on proprietary software. I DO argue that I have never and will not accept any EULAs, and use any proprietary software I am forced to use under copyright law as is, without asking for or accepting any additional permissions or restrictions, and without ever in my life taking seriously the idea that an unreadable page of gibbe

"but if a company breaks a rule in the GPL they should be fully punished."

Of course it has to.

But even if you are not so 'dura lex sed lex' as I am, just an example about why it might be good to break some laws but no others:It is good to unslave people even if slavery is legal.It is still good to make sure taxes laws are applied on slave plantations.

It certainly is completely impractical to forcibly prevent or punish piracy. Even extreme measures such as monitoring every packet on the Internet, or just shutting it down altogether could not stop piracy. There is always sneakernet. Two people could swap flash drives with a quick handshake.

GPL is very much a matter of hoisting copyright extremists in their own petard. If they've played har

What makes you think that Free Software/Open Source supporters think it's OK to pirate closed source tools ?The only case in which we might think it's acceptable is when we need to circumvent restriction on thirst party content.

We do not want to use closed source tools ever, if we can avoid it.

So if you have a software using a restrictive license, go ahead I'll just avoid using it.But if because of monopolistics shennanighans you stop me from accessing legally purchased content, then yes I might support som

What I have always found interesting is how much of their rhetoric, especially against the BSDs and those using proprietary software, is very similar to the *.A.A. In both cases they come up with ever more crazy "doom scenarios" that will befall you if you don't do things THEIR way, and both act like any path other than doing things their way is just insanity and "you must be one of THEM!" if you don't agree with them.
I always found that fascinating, how you can take a post from a rabid GPLer and a rabid

The danger with BSDL is that since there's no incentive for a company to give back, often critical pieces get closed off, reinvented and you can't really share code. In other words, you just saved the salary of a compliance officer, but didn't gain the advantage of community testing/improvement of your code, unless you release your code back, in which case you still need a compliance officer and code audits (to ensure that you don't accidentally release something you want to keep proprietary), anyway.

Anyone who's argument against BSDL involves "giving back to the community" doesn't understand the GPL.

There is nothing in the GPL that requires anyone to "give back to the community". You are under the requirement to give source code ONLY to those you give the binary to. You don't have to give it "back to the community".

It's true that the people you sell the software to (with source code) could turn around it and release it publicly, but that's unlikely to be the case very often. After all, they paid for

Maybe, but I'm sure there are hardcore people out there who would break even the lax license of FreeBSD [freebsd.org]. Surely someone is on their team to give the legal equivalent of "lol GTFO" when a user decides to e.g. offer it stripped of the copyright notice or try to claim a nonexistent warranty.

Certainly there are benifits to the community. Microsoft used the BSD TCP/IP stack when they first released Windows NT. BSD users were very happy for that. It ment that the large number of new machines coming online with a new MS OS would be using a tried and tested TCP/IP stack that played well with others on the net.

Now, supposing MS made some fantastic improvement to the BSD stack, and didn't contribute those changes back... Which they may have done, but we'll never know.

The community benefits are demonstrably less in this case.

Whereas, if it were under the (L)GPL, MS would be forced to pay back into the community, for the service that they received in the form of not having to reinvent their own TCP stack, or buy it from someone else.

Essentially, it's a Free Lunch for them. Some creators or authors may be fine with t

You are ignoring the fact that the community did benifit. Which you previously said did not. And MS got to get the stack out without worrying about lawyers hassling them about the license, which was a benifit to them.

You are quite free to license your own software under as restrictive a license as you want, no one said otherwise. Just don't spout off that the BSD license doesn't benifit the community.

"The specific benefit to the community is not the one we want, maybe."

We want? Who is we? The original poster endorsed the BSD license, and you said it had not benifit to the community. It certainly does have a benifit the BSD BSD community wants. If someone is wants to use BSD code, and the BSD developers/users are happy with the benifit, who gives a crap what GPL users think they are getting out of the deal?

As for how many companies comply with 'all 3 clauses', it would probably depend if the software

I was reacting to the smugness in the OP's idea - "No licensing cops necessary". It's not that simple.

We want? Who is we?

We referring to those who choose the GPL; "we" want more than the warm fuzzy feeling that somebody else is using (and profiting from) our code without giving anything tangible back.

The original poster endorsed the BSD license, and you said it had not benifit to the community. It certainly does have a benifit the BSD BSD community wants. If someone is wants to use BSD code, and the BSD developers/users are happy with the benifit, who gives a crap what GPL users think they are getting out of the deal?

This article is about GPL compliance, where a BSDL troll decides to make a smug statement. I'm merely saying that the situation is more complex than that.

As for how many companies comply with 'all 3 clauses', it would probably depend if the software was licensed under the 4 clause, 3 clause, or 2 clause license. As far as stats, I don't have any. Do you? The threshold of meeting the BSD licensing requirements is low enough, most companies just seem to do it with no real issue.

Obviously, I meant 3-clause. The critical question is about clause 2:

Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

Define 'community'. 99% of all software is proprietary, and so if anybody has the statistical right to use that term, it'd be people like Windows users, OS-X users and so on. People who use GPLed software are an asterisk - and even the overwhelming majority of Android users, which is what gives Linux their numbers, don't care about source code. Or 'software freedom'. When someone can show statistical data that demonstrates that a majority of computer users know programming or people who do and want acce

troll feeding mode:
The real question is - is MyCleanPC licensed under GPLv3? You see, I'd like to see the source code to this available, so that if it is, as one suspects, a virus, one can alter it to become a real anti-virus and release it that way. And if any virus-authors get hold of it and want to make a virus out of it, they can do it, but they must release the source code to this baby. It should also not be on any locked-down hardware - freedom 3 of GNU - the freedom to modify and distribute the c

No, it's not wrong. It's also not misleading. The GPL CONTROLS what people can do with software. Just admit that you believe in CONTROLLING people in the name of achieving a RESULT you like. If that's your position, I have no problem with it, but it's hypocritical to posture as an advocate of giving people complete freedom and believing that restrictions are wrong -- except the restrictions that YOU happen to like.

You're not very bright, are you? The people who advocate for the GPL claim they are advocating complete freedom with code. The people who advocate for laws to punish murder don't pretend that they are in favor of people having the freedom to murder each other. In both cases, the advocates are trying to CONTROL behavior. People who are against murder admit it. People who don't want people to do what they want with software (unless they approve) are hypocrites.